Starfish
by fluggerbutter
Summary: Sabrina Grimm was eleven all over again. She wept into the shoulder of the man who had nearly been her undoing, and let him stroke her hair and call her Starfish, and she fell apart in that old hall, five years from where she should have been.


There was one time tear left, in the middle of the forest, unheeded. It led to an empty hallway that was unrecognizable to most.

But they were not _mos_t.

Daphne found it first. She was twelve, and she would have stepped through, but she felt like it would be soiling something sacred. So she called up her sister instead.

The elder Grimm arrived not twenty minutes later, fists clenched and shoulders tight, as if she were trying to keep herself from falling apart.

"Are you going to go see him?" asked Daphne.

Sabrina held up a hand to the tear, and tried not to sob. "When does it lead to?"

"Looks... past."

The young blonde cast one blue-eyed glance back at her sister's worried face, then stepped through with a deep breath and a prayer.

It was warm in that old hall. She was embraced by nostalgia and the smell of books that were centuries old. The rip in space-time behind her stayed open, shivering; she placed faith in the hope that it would be there when she turned back.

There were footsteps coming from round the corner, or perhaps from a hundred feet from where she stood. Who knew, with the acoustics in this labyrinth. Either way, her shoulders tensed; her heart beat so fast she thought it might well leap out of her throat and choke her. She walked towards the sound, slowly, taking forever, forever, and a few minutes more. Then she saw him and stopped and her heart broke.

"Starfish?"

It _broke. _

There he was, same old Mirror, kind and inviting with the sweetest of smiles. _Liar_, screamed her brain at her, _liar_. _He's a liar he's a cheat he's a murderer don't trust him don't trust him don't trust him. _

But her heart reached out, and her body followed suit, and she stumbled into his arms feeling eleven all over again.

"Mirror," she whispered, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. She managed to keep her tears in only because her subconscious dug a knife in her stomach and reminded her that he was still the Master, that she could reveal his death at any time and change her future.

"Sabrina... you're taller than _me_ now."

"Don't ask," she said, and he didn't, and that was when she let herself cry. Her fingers clutched the fabric of his suit; she felt something in her fall away, because this fabric was a lie and he was a lie and every word that spilled out of his mouth was a lie but he murmured the most comforting of nothings in her ear. Good old Mirror. Always there for her.

_Except when it mattered. Especially when it mattered. _

Always... there.

Sabrina Grimm was eleven all over again. She wept into the shoulder of the man who had nearly been her undoing, and let him stroke her hair and call her _Starfish_, and she fell apart in that old hall, five years from where she should have been. She wanted to sit and talk to him about Daphne. About Red. About Puck. She wanted to complain about her parents. She wanted to let him know all the pressure that was on her at school, and how finals were so close, and how she wanted to give up; even though she'd saved lives, and cities, and the world _(from him)_, she was still scared of so many things, and she didn't want to be.

She would talk about anything and everything, with him. She had, once upon a time. Now was not that time – not really – but it felt like it – and she had to know, even through her tears:

"Mirror, do you ever feel guilty?"

She wouldn't have noticed it before but she noticed it now – the way his hand stopped on her head for the briefest of seconds before continuing. "About what, Starfish?" His voice was so quiet and sweet and _sincere _that it sent her into a fresh burst of sobs.

"I don't know. Anything. Things you do. Things you've done. Do you ever regret it?"

She wouldn't pull back, because pulling back would mean seeing the full absence of truth in his eyes.

But his answer surprised her.

"Yes," he said, "Of course."

And in her mind's eye, she saw the smile on his face when he'd died. Contended, happy, loved. He was dead, for her: but here, now, he was alive, and he knew regret. She stared into brown eyes that said _I'm sorry for it all_, and wished so much she could take that pain from him already, and keep him living.

Then they stopped saying sorry and the lies came forth in a multitude. There was no apology in this deception.

"Are _you_ regretting something? Sabrina, you've never done anything wrong."

She wiped her eyes with the palm of one hand; the other was still in his, but the touch was no longer comforting. "I've done a lot of things wrong, Mirror."

"No. You're a Grimm. I know you. What you screw up, you always fix."

He never believed those words for an instant, she knew.

"You're taller than me now," he said again, when she forgot to speak.

"Yeah," she said. Her wispy blonde hair fell over eyes that were blue-grey and tearless and lost as her gaze met the ground.

"Sabrina?" he said. So soft, with such empathy, like he meant it.

"I've got to go now," she whispered. Her hands lingered in his for a moment. She stared at them, intertwined, together until one of them tore from the other, and said, "You're so loved."

He was startled into silence. She finally raised her pale eyes to his dark ones. Her voice shook so much she could feel the wavelengths in the air.

"You are so, _so_ loved. By Relda, by Daphne, by Mom and Dad and Jake... and by no one more than me."

And so she left him, with no other parting gesture, just slow steps and loose fists and a pain in her chest that made her want to say _I forgive you. _Even though she'd uttered those words five years ago when she was young and terrified. Even though she'd mulled them over a thousand times since then, kept them hidden in her palms where nobody could see them.

She would always forgive him. It hurt to forgive and was easy to hate, so she had to keep telling herself – it was best to have forgiven. It was good that he didn't melt into a pool of silver at her feet hating himself. She would always forgive him, because she still loved him, because even though it was easy to hate, it was braver to love.

As Sabrina stepped through over threshold and into a world that was bright and beautiful and filled with so much hope and so many possibilities, she wished she could have let him see it. The way she'd turned that life fraught with tragedy into something she loved. Without him, she realized, as she was wrapped up into her sister's embrace, she wouldn't have this. She'd still be in New York City, so ignorant it hurt.

He would have been so proud. That Mirror she knew, the one who loved her, the one who stroked her hair, and called her _Starfish_.


End file.
